In a typical turbo machine seal assembly, tandem dry gas seals consisting of a primary and a secondary gas seal, are often used to eliminate process gas leakage to the atmosphere. The tandem dry gas seal has pressure limits well below the turbo machine's ability. In high pressure applications, however, to operate properly the tandem gas seal must receive “blown-down” process gas (a low-pressure process gas that has been significantly reduced in pressure by a previous “blow down” seal). In conventional operations, a tooth or damper labyrinth seal is typically used as the blow down seal and configured to blow down high-pressure process gas to a level that the tandem gas seal can accept. Using a labyrinth seal, however, has demonstrated significant inefficiencies in the form of total flow and machinery power losses. Therefore, in high-pressure applications, there is a need for an alternative to the tooth or damper labyrinth seal used to blow down the high-pressure process. Instead, what is needed is a low-leakage sealing technology capable of handling higher delta pressures.